EMPLOYMENT CONTACTS AND MINORITY WHITE WAGE DIFFERENCES

We study effects of job contacts on wages in inner-city Boston in 1989 and in the 1982 NLSY, Race/Hispanicity differences in wages are not e xplained by an absence of contacts among minority youths. Rather, in t he Boston data, lower wages of black youths are explained by lower ''r eturns'' to their contacts. In the NLSY there is little evidence of lo wer return to black youths' contacts, but there is evidence of lower r eturns to Hispanic youths' contacts.